Call to Juno (Tales of Ancient Rome #3)(66)
Vel slipped his arm around her waist. “Yes. He is a paradox. A dying god.”
She scanned his face. “Why do you now turn to him instead of Nortia?”
His expression was as serious as Tas’s. “Because I have changed ever since you told me of the dice throw, Bellatrix. You’ve set me a challenge. I can’t save Veii until I first conquer Rome.”
Once again, Caecilia regretted telling him her secret. She hated the pressure she’d placed on him. Yet the thought of worshiping Fufluns troubled her. “Vel, I’ve seen what’s required to submit to the wine god. I can’t follow him. Please don’t ask that of me.”
He cupped her chin in his hand. “The rites of the Spring Festival you attended were not the way of the Rasenna.”
“People were beyond drunk. They were possessed, screaming out the god’s name, beseeching him to reveal himself as they rutted.”
“The divinity offers contact with him through elation. He is a communicant between the living and dead.” He brought her fingers to his lips. “He also has the power to enchant and bring joy through the bounty of the vine. You know that well enough. I’ve seen you merry on wine and no sign that you don’t welcome it.”
“There is a difference between good humor and frenzy.”
“Wine is Fufluns’s gift, Bellatrix. Granted, it can fuel deeds of violence and lust, but it can also make a poor man feel rich, a slave free, and the weak powerful. Under its sway you are no longer fearful. There is candor, too, and forgetfulness of woe.”
Listening to him filled her with growing unease. She remembered how her pulse had quickened when he declared he was planning to conquer Rome. Now her heartbeat raced at his defense of the deity. Had he always felt this way and kept it from her? Had he always resented her depriving him of ecstatic union?
“So what are you saying, Vel? Do you want me to forsake my belief in Uni so I can worship him? The goddess stands for all that Fufluns isn’t. I revere her as the protectress of married women. She has sheltered me through the birth of each of our children. She saved Veii, and you, in the Battle of Blood and Hail.”
“Of course not,” he said, his impatience evident. “But don’t you understand? There is good and evil in all of us, even the gods. They have loves and wants and hatreds as intense as any mortal. And you know there is violence within me just as there is love for you and our children. Even Uni has her darker side. She can be vengeful and hostile.”
He tried to draw her closer, but she placed one hand against his cuirass. “Why, Vel? Why your fervor for this god?”
He grasped her shoulders. “Because I’ve been thinking more of death. Not just mine, but yours. And our children’s. I want the comfort of knowing we’ll meet again in the Beyond. I want you to believe in my afterlife, not in the cheerless existence of your Roman dead.”
Stunned by his desperate tone, Caecilia slipped from the kline, a flush of heat spreading through her. Mastarna had never asked her to forsake her religion, the last and only link to her birthplace. A Roman death required no reckoning or retribution. She would merge with the mass of ancestral spirits, no longer an individual, but one with many: freed from emotions, devoid of bliss or woe, love or hatred. “At least there are no perils awaiting me when I become a Shade.”
He shook her. “But our children and I will need to appease you once you join such a host. There is a reason why the Roman dead are called the Good Ones. It’s a name to placate them from rising to torment the living.”
Caecilia steadied herself. She felt as though she were treading a pathway to a past where there had only been differences between them. He was asking her to make a choice she thought he’d never demand. “Have I held you back from your worship all these years?”
“No. I promised to respect your beliefs. I also lacked piety myself, but now . . .”
“But now you seek to conquer Rome.”
“Yes, the stakes are higher. Either Veii succeeds or it is destroyed.” He lowered his voice. “We are destroyed.”
She was truly frightened now. Mastarna seldom admitted he was afraid. His bravado was reassuring even if she teased him for being vain. The fact that he always survived, always returned, kept her hope alive. “You’ve taunted Nortia so many times, Vel. I didn’t think you feared death.”
He rubbed his brow with his fist, the gesture sharp. “Of course I feel my stomach tighten every time I lower my helmet and raise my shield. And pray for courage like every other man. But this is different.” He hugged her. “Don’t you understand? I never know if I’ll return to find you or our children taken by plague—or that Rome has breached our wall. Not only do I fear losing you while I’m alive but also after I’m slain. To believe we will meet again in the Beyond is a consolation, even if our bodies may never lie together in a grave.”
She rested her head against his chest, the bronze of his corselet denying her the warmth of his body. “I don’t know what to do.”
He kissed her hair. “Bellatrix, I can’t force you to follow Fufluns, but please consider giving libation to him and kneeling before his shrine while I’m away. Remember there were many things here that repelled you that you now enjoy. Perhaps you can accept this, too. And then,” he whispered, “at the next festival after I return, we might seek communion together under the stars.”